A Lament For Their Eyes 2 comments

13 Feb 2006 @ 13:41, by Shimanta Bhattacharyya A Lament For Their Eyes** (For my *ULFA brethren who are either dead, dying or will die) (*The United Liberation Front Of Assam,- a secessionist militant organisation fighting for an independent statehood in the state of Assam, India). They want to shut their eyes, they cannot The red, lidless eyes gape like festering wounds They are struck with a strange sickness They are struck with the seeing sickness of the sky The sky sees everything. The sky is one enormous eye The sky never stops seeing. Seeing everything all at once The eyes too can see everything. But only in patches The sky sometimes weeps The eyes do not weep, they cannot The eyes have become clogged with excess salt They cannot wash themselves clean like the sky The eyes do not have the luxury of tears The waters of the eyes have become locked in ice Like subterranean cataracts in winter The waters of the eyes have withered into a lake A lake of frozen tears The sun comes feeling for their eyes with pointed daggers The moon comes feeling for their eyes with banderillas The wind comes feeling for their eyes with grasping fingers They cannot shut their eyes; they cannot shut their eyes Last night they fished out a corpse from a pond Its mouth was wide open. The eyes protruding like ping-pong balls They say he cried a lot. Others say he died of seeing too much Now he tastes death in his mouth and death stares through his eyes The rain claws at the green skulls of violent memories The air is moist with blood spewing from ransacked towns A vulture slakes its thirst at fetid pools of submerged bones In the distance clouds gather like poisonous mushrooms The rice withdraws into the earth. A swathe of smoke Covers the eyes of those who have come To cremate their dead. Somewhere a girl tries to sing But the song sticks in her throat like a knife They want to shut their eyes, they cannot They cannot shut their eyes in spite of the daggers They cannot shut their eyes in spite of the knives They cannot shut their eyes in spite of the guns That seek out their pithless hearts with long fiery tongues They are the fallen angels with wings like shards of electricity They cannot shut their eyes, their eyes with their pierced dreams Oh, if they shut their eyes the nightmares begin ©Shimanta Bhattacharyya, 7th April 2004 Stained glass 'Frozen Tears' by Moniek van Munster [link]

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